A Texas minister is suing Kanye West, saying the rapper, producer and businessman used an audio recording of one of his lectures without permission in the song “Come to Life”.
Dallas County, Texas, pastor David Paul Moten sued West, his Universal Music Group UMG.AS music label, and its subsidiaries Def Jam Recordings and GOOD Music founded by West on Tuesday in court. federal Dallas. The copyright infringement lawsuit says that at least two parts of “Come to Life” feature excerpts from Moten’s lectures.
UMG and attorneys for Moten did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit. West, who legally changed his name to Ye last year, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Moten claims samples from his lecture include more than 20 percent of the song “Come to Life,” which appeared on West’s hit album “Donda” last year. Named after West’s late mother, “Donda” topped the Billboard charts and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
Moten said in the lawsuit that West showed an “alarming pattern” of “intentionally sampling other people’s recordings without consent.”
West has previously settled lawsuits over samples by a Hungarian singer in the 2013 song “New Slaves”, a child’s prayer in the 2016 song “Ultralight Beam”, and a theatrical production of Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey on “Freeee (Ghost Town Pt. 2),” 2018 collaboration with rapper Kid Cudi.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington, DCE Editing by David Bario and David Gregorio)
